Best Photobooks 2012: the meta-list

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I like to look at photographs, in genres very different
from my own, particularly in book form. I may write some about this
obsession later, but for now let me just mention that in some years, I have
spent more on photobooks than on photography gear. I also like
best-of lists for many things. Despite their limitations, they are a
useful way to try and bring order to possibilities that are so
numerous as being practically infinite.

Despite the digital onslaught, there is more interest in printed photobooks than ever. The last few years have seen
“best photobooks of the year” lists mushroom in November and December. Last year, curator and writer
Marc Feustel compiled a
meta “best of” 2011 photobooks
list by gathering 52 lists, and giving one vote to a book for each appearance on a list. After completing the exercise, he
wrote “if I see another list at this stage, I will probably have to take my own life”. As expected he didn’t compile
the meta-list for 2012 photobooks. So here I have done the work, using the same methodology, based on a list of 56 lists
gathered by Photot(o)lia that you should definitively explore – plus a few others.
When you consider that some
of the lists within (most notably Photo-Eye) are already themselves meta-lists, that’s actually more than 90 lists and 500 different titles.

The votes are very spread out. While the clear “winner” received about 25% of nominations, the runner up got only 14%, and from there many titles are tied. This large dispersion reflects the considerable number of titles published. The vitality of the photobook is encouraging, even though the lack of consensus may give the disorienting impression that everything is worth the same.

Non-inclusion on the meta-list doesn’t preclude greatness.
American Photographs, one of the two most important books in the history of American photography, was reprinted in 2012 for the first time in a quarter century. Other relatively obscure reprints made it to the meta-list, but not American Photographs (maybe because most photobook lovers own already a copy ? the reprint looks better than my 1938 copy). It appeared only on the
list by Mike Johnston’s TOP, initially as the top choice because it is that site’s all-time best seller, with readers ordering more than 1,200 copies.

Many of the top-nominated titles are from small publishers, such Mack Books, a small publishing house focusing on intellectually challenging projects, which started only in 2011 (Michael Mack is a Steidl veteran, though) and doesn’t even use traditional mass-distribution. Well-established Aperture and Steidl appear only from the 10th place. I am only beginning to look at the list. So far, my favorite is “(based on a true story)” which is self-published. I haven’t seen “Afronauts” and don’t expect to do so. Well before any of the
lists was written, its 1000 copies had already sold out, which is
quite remarkable for a debut, self-published book, published in May 2013. If you do something interesting, despite the avalanche of new photobooks, it is still possible to get noticed, coming out of nowhere !

QT Luong is a full-time photographer and author with a broad range of work on natural and cultural landscapes, noted for being the first to photograph each of the 60 US National Parks - in large format, the subject of Treasured Lands, winner of six national book awards.